Help:Contribute

Thanks for helping build out the wiki! There's always lots to be done (especially after the migration from the old site)—this page provides an overview of some of the main tasks we need help with.

Getting started

Here's some quick steps to get setup and oriented as an editor!

1. If you have not already, you can use Special:CreateAccount to create an account (all you need is an email address and a password) and start editing.
2. Some useful context to check out:
   • The "Understanding the wiki way" section of Best practices for using MediaWiki to learn about the ethos of a wiki.
   • The Stencil:Styleguide for guidelines on writing for and editing this wiki.
   • If you're interested in some background, this post: robertbaxter.substack.com/p/red-link-citation-needed from User:Robertbaxter on how this wiki came to be.
   • The #stencil-wiki channel in the @risography discord server.
3. An introduction to editing tools:
   • To learn about wikitext (the markup language used for wiki editing) read the MediaWiki cheatsheet (more detailed information can be found in Help:Formatting (also from MediaWiki). Whenever you use the "Edit source" button it will take you to a wikitext editor (with limited WYSIWYG tools along the top bar).
   • If you're editing the body of an article, it might be easier to use the Visual Editor—this is what you get when using the "Edit" button. It's a much more straightforward in-place editor, but not great at handling templates or fine-tuning layout.
   • And for Category:Places, Category:Events, Category:Inks, Category:Duplicator series, and Category:Tutorials, you're probably doing most of your editing with a Page Form, using the "Edit with form" button. This is a pretty straightforward (though ugly) HTML form interface, with the body of the article in one big textbox at the end.
4. Before you get editing pages, there's some important rules to know!

• Remember not to include personal or identifiable information on the wiki for anyone but yourself (if you choose to share it)—this means no addresses, no emails, etc.
• Please don't submit any copyrighted files, images, or text without permission!
• Use <ref></ref> tags to reference outside sources for articles, then include {{References}} at the end of the page to display them!

And that's it, welcome to the wiki!

First edits

Editing your own place page is a great way to get a feel for the system.

If you manage a riso somewhere, check and see if your space already has a page on the wiki! Use the search bar at the the top of the page to search for your press/printshop/studio name.

1. If the page already exists, click the "Edit with form" button at the top of the page.
2. To create a new place page you'll want to use Form:Place, typing in the name of your studio, and then clicking "Create or edit."

Once you're in the form for the page, you can change the details of the place, or use the big free text box at the end of the page to edit the article content.

1. Check and update your website link, inventory of inks, list of machines, etc. You can also add location information and services.
2. If you add coordinates, your place will show up on the atlas!
3. For the article, try adding some text explaining your studio!
   • See that {{Inventory}} text in there? That invokes the Template:Inventory component, which displays a visual list of the inks and machines you selected.
   • You can add a citation to some other page (maybe the about page on your site) if you want, by including the link in <ref></ref> tags (for example: <ref>https://perfectly-acceptable.com/print/</ref>). Then at the end of the free text/article box, add {{References}}
   • Generally for place pages, there's some kind of introduction, then people might have subheadings to talk about different topics (e.g. == History ==), then they have the {{Inventory}} template and the {{References}} template (if there were citations on the page).
4. Once you're done editing, click "Save changes" and your new/updated page will be saved to the wiki!
   • You can optionally provide a little descriptions of the edits you made in the "Summary" box before saving—this will be saved along with the record of your edits, and can be useful when looking through the history of a page (but is not strictly necessary).
   • If you have "Watch this page" selected you'll get a little notification (when logged into the wiki) whenever this page is edited in the future.
5. If you want to check out the other ways of editing a page, try the "Edit" button (for the Visual Editor) or "Edit source" button (for the wikitext editor), both in the top bar of the page.

For more information on places, please see Help:Places. Also feel free to use the atlas to look at other place pages for ideas! (Though many are also mostly blank pages, waiting to be updated.)